


Everything

by pylades



Category: Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-28
Updated: 2016-01-28
Packaged: 2018-05-16 22:04:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 537
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5842651
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pylades/pseuds/pylades
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It isn’t always easy.</p><p>In fact, it’s rarely easy, but somehow that doesn’t matter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Everything

**Author's Note:**

> The prompt: “I have everything – I have you.”
> 
> Also, sometimes I think about where I stand on Jack’s and Katherine’s financial situation. And while I feel like Katherine would most assuredly have had some kind of inheritance or (ugh) dowry assuming that her relationship with her family remained positive (aka Joe doesn’t disown her for marrying Jack) … I also love the idea of her saying NO to her family’s money and standing on her own two feet with the man she loves. But whatevs, I use what works for the story. Head canons are nice that way.

It isn’t always easy.

In fact, it’s rarely easy, but somehow that doesn’t matter. They don’t dwell on the times when Katherine’s released from work (Check with us in a month, Katherine, perhaps we’ll be able to use you …) or when Jack’s editorial cartoons aren’t published (It’s as true for a cartoonist as for a newsboy – an earthquake or a war would help sell a few papers.)

They have a home and clothes on their backs and food in their stomachs. Their meals may be meager in those difficult times, mostly because they’ll never turn away a friend at the table, but they manage.

Katherine isn’t bitter or frustrated, though. She wasn’t born into this life, but she’s adapted because of Jack. She doesn’t miss parties or breakfasts on silver trays, brought to her by uniformed maids. She’d much rather have a pack of newsies at her table and toast in bed (especially when the toast is delivered by a sleep-rumpled, half-dressed husband).

They’ve been married slightly more than a year when mornings in bed with toast and replaced by mornings retching into the first container she can find (including, on one horrifyingly memorable occasion, a hat that Jack previously considered his favorite). She doesn’t see a doctor, because – well, doctors cost money.

And Davey’s mother is more than helpful when she catches Katherine swaying on her feet.

A baby. She’s experienced these symptoms herself on three occasions, after all.

There’s nothing that a doctor can tell Katherine that a mother couldn’t tell her without charge.

This is all much sooner than they’ve planned. And when Jack finds out, he takes on additional jobs with a determined (if exhausted) glint in his eyes. Mrs. Jacobs tries to teach Katherine the art of tatting, mending, but she can’t make money like that. People won’t pay for her to return poorly mended (and usually bloodied) trousers to them. No, she takes her books to a trustworthy man who pays her handsomely for the leather-bound volumes. She writes frivolous articles for ladies periodicals. She learns how to carefully shop for food that can be stretched into meals for days. And she carefully puts her earnings with Jack’s, ignoring his frustrated complaints that he’d just “take another job, Ace.” and she should “stop workin’ so hard, the baby -”

She also spends her afternoons furiously scribbling notes to her mother, reminding her that she’s a grown woman with a husband and they can support each other just fine, thank you. She’s far too proud to accept money from either of her parents, regardless of the language that her mother couches it in (dowry was insulting, even if it briefly amused Jack).

They’re curled together in bed one night, Jack’s fingers lazily stroking her abdomen as he whispers something into her hair that she can’t quite hear. She shifts to face him in bed and that’s when Katherine sees the sadness lining his young face.

“What did you say?”

“Jes’ - that I feel terrible that nothing’s going right lately. That I can’t give you anything you deserve.”

“Jack Kelly, you need to stop right there.” she whispers, perhaps a bit harsher than intended. “I have everything - I have you.”

“For sure?”

“For sure.”


End file.
